All posts tagged mini

Semi-Custom Visuals For Our Christmas Service

by Kendall Conner on December 6, 2012 in How-To with No comments
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Some of the most memorable moments that I’ve experienced in church services have had some kind of visual involved. An example of this could be a pastor showing a picture that correlates with a story that he’s telling. Or a video of young children in Africa that missionaries show as they ask for support. Or simply the mini-movies that are found on sites like WorshipHouse, Igniter, or Centerline. However, beyond motion backgrounds, you don’t see many truly memorable visuals during times of singing. I tried to keep this in mind as our team prepared for our upcoming Christmas services and after finding a unique motion bundle from Church Motion Graphics, I knew exactly how we could make a big visual impact during our worship. It would require a little more work, but it would look awesome. Check out this video and we’ll discuss more after the break.

We made the decision that in this moment, a visual impact was more important than our congregation singing along. Because of this, we moved from having the lyrics displayed on this particular song to just these powerful animations from Church Motion Graphics. Because each of these Advent themed words came as a separate motion, I was able to tailor fit the graphics to match each part of this song. This can easily be done with any of your upcoming Christmas songs or with special music throughout the year. After finding a some content that would visually speak our message well, I quickly dragged them into my video editing software and matched them to an mp3 of the song that we’re singing. At our Christmas service, I’ll simply press play on this clip as the band starts playing and I’ll get to sit back and enjoy watching it! (You could also get really creative with a click-track for your drummer.)

With a little bit of planning and some powerful visuals, you can take a song to the next level and make a truly memorable moment.

You can download this motion bundle from Church Motion Graphics here.
Find more inspiration for “visual worship” here.

Using Mini-Movies For Transitions

by Kendall Conner on October 25, 2012 in How-To with 1 Comment
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“What can we do better on Sunday mornings?” This was the question that a few of our pastoral staff members stopped and asked ourselves a couple weeks ago. For our church, we’ve found that an element of the service that we seem to consistently struggle with is transitions. It’s common for us to have a really powerful worship set, but then have an really awkward pause as we move into taking up the offering. Or when transitioning from our announcement video into a special (solo). Or this can even happen when our pastor comes up to preach. Don’t get me wrong—these aren’t show-stopping moments, but rather just an area that we feel could use a little tweaking so that our services run smoother.

When brainstorming on different ways that we could improve in this area, I came up with an idea that would not only help to smooth out any wrinkles in our transitions, but would also add to our service. By using mini-movies in between elements of our worship service, we could grab the attention of our congregation while also communicating a message that really speaks to their hearts. Here’s a couple of examples of where you could use these videos to help with transitions:

BEFORE WORSHIP

After starting your service with a countdown video, you can play a mini-movie like Praise The Lord, My Soul to prepare your congregation to enter into worship.

BETWEEN SONGS

It is our typical custom to end our worship set with a slower song. Sometimes it can be a little strange as we move from an upbeat couple of songs into a slower one. Using a video like Worthy Are You can easily slow down the tempo of the room as you transition into a more intimate song.

BEFORE THE SERMON

As your worship team exits the stage and the pastor comes forth, there is a excellent opportunity to use a mini-movie that relates to the morning message. For example, if your pastor is speaking on God making all things new, you could play something like The New Has Come while everyone is moving into place. This can be a real attention-grabber that sets the tone for the sermon.

BEFORE SPECIAL EVENTS

Another really practical example of using these mini-movies for a transition is playing something like Wash Your Sins Away as your pastor and baptism participants are taking their place in the water for their big moment.

Mini-movies make an excellent addition to a service no matter where you play them. They have a way of captivating an audience and speaking to people in a way that sometimes even a pastor cannot. But you can use them to kill two birds with one stone by playing them during your times of transition. It’s likely that you only have an hour or so with your congregation as a whole each week. Because of this, you need to make the most of every moment that they are there and this is a simple way to make an impact during a time that’s normally wasted.

Introducing The iPad Mini

by Kendall Conner on October 23, 2012 in Articles with 4 Comments
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Have you heard the big news? Apple held a press conference this morning to announce several new products which included an upgraded Mac Mini, an amazing new iMac, new 13″ MacBook Pro, the 4th generation iPad, and a new iPad Mini. There’s no hiding that the iPad has radically changed the computer industry since its release just a few years ago. In fact, they have transformed the “tablet market” that was once only considered the red-headed-stepchild of the computing world and made it common to everyone from children to senior citizens. Because there is virtually no end to the potential of this device, iPads can be seen in offices, classrooms, hospitals, police departments, and even churches. What do you do when you have the best selling product in an industry? You find a way for more people to use it in more ways. When Apple announced that they were releasing the iPad Mini today, I believe they succeeded in that.

I have always been a fan of the 9.7″ screen size of my iPad, but I can definitely understand that it’s a bit too large for some people to carry with them all the time. This new, smaller size (7.9″) seems like it will really be convenient for people to stick in their purse or coat pocket. This should translate into users carrying it with them to more places. Luckily, it has the same screen shape, so that all of the iPad apps will work on it without losing any visibility. While I’m not super thrilled over the modest tech specs of the Mini (basically has the horsepower of an iPad 2), I don’t think that it’s a show stopper. Developers will surely keep those specs in mind when creating their apps.

Probably the most exciting news that came with this new product is the price. The $499 price tag that comes with the regular sized iPad is just too steep for those working on a tight budget. Now that the iPad Mini is available for only $329, a lot more people will have the opportunity to own one of these powerful devices. This is going to be great in our church in cases such as our praise and worship team. The preferred and the easiest way for them to carry their music sheets is with their OnSong app (soon to transition to Planning Center Online). There is also a lot of music/sound gear that works with iPad. For example, we use a PreSonus StudioLive mixer that allows for each of its 10 aux’s (monitor feeds) to be controlled from an iOS device. I think that this screen size and price are going to work great for our band members for this purpose. We also use iPads in my small group each week. It makes things so much easier when we can read ebooks and distribute pdf discussion guides without having to print out the materials. I’m not convinced that the Mini is going to be big enough for me to preach from like I do with my current iPad, but I’m interested in trying it!

What do you think of the new iPad Mini? Do you currently use iPads in your church?

Six Great Freebies You Can Download Today

by Kendall Conner on February 20, 2012 in Freebies with No comments
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1. Falling Particles Countdown (Centerline New Media)
2. Grunge Fire Motion (Church Motion Graphics)
3. He Is Worthy Mini Movie (Worship House Media)
4. Upcoming Events Splash Screen (Graceway Media)
5. Construction Crew Kids Mini-Movie (Worship House Kids)
6. In The Presence Motion (MovingBacksProducts) 

Twelve Days of Freebies

by Kendall Conner on December 1, 2011 in Freebies with No comments
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Every year, the crew over at Worship House Media fills our December with twelve days of free media just as a ‘thank you’ during the Christmas season. I’ve always said WHM is like the Walmart of church media—they’ve got just about every producer and video that can be found on their site. Be sure to visit their site each of the following days so that you can rack up on these great freebies. To kick it off, they’ve got a great mini-movie from Floodgate Productions.

Check out all of the freebies here!

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